Dell Latitude XT2 Tablet PC Officially Announced, $2399

Dell’s getting all official on us now, finally announcing what has been leaked the past several weeks, the new series in their XT Tablet PC line up – the Latitude XT2 Multi-Touch Tablet PC: 1.2 ghz SU9300 / 1.4 ghz SU9400 Montevina Core 2 Duo ULV, up to 11 hour battery life (6-cell + 9-cell slice), improved antennae design for wireless connectivity, Intel 4500MHD integrated graphics, up to 5 gb DDR3 ram, N-Trig capacitive touch digitizer for multi-touch support. The Latitude XT2 is available now at a starting price of $2399. More specs, pictures, promo video, and official press release after the break.

FYI – this was under embargo until Tuesday morning, but since other sites, and Dell + Dell Japan themselves, have broken the embargo, we have now published it.

Specs

Processor: 1.2 / 1.4 ghz Intel Small Form Factor Montevina chipset

Graphics: Intel 4500MHD integrated graphics

Display: 12.1″ LED and Daylight Viewable LED, 1280 x 800

Weight: 3.62 lbs with 4-cell; 3.78 lbs with 6-cell

Battery: 4, 6, and 9-cell slice

Memory: 1gb on board, 1 slot open for up to a 4gb DDR3 chip for up to 5gb of ram

ROUND ROCK, Texas, Feb. 10, 2009 – Dell today announced the Latitude XT2 convertible tablet building on the industry’s first tablet PC with multi-touch screen capabilities designed to enhance security, increase performance and extend battery life. The system starts at $2,399 and is available today at www.dell.com/latitude.

Multi-touch capabilities on the Latitude XT2 allow users to use natural gestures like a pinch or tap for scrolling, panning, rotating and zooming that work with productivity applications they use every day. Dell’s integration of multi-touch screen technology allows customers to use the full real estate of the display, as opposed to just the touchpad.

““As part of our commitment to deliver the best mobility experience, Dell revolutionized the tablet space with the first multi-touch capable product that allows customers to use the entire screen,Ã¢â‚¬Â said Brett McAnally, director, Dell Product Group. ““Today, we’re extending that leadership with the Latitude XT2 to deliver more performance, security and manageability.Ã¢â‚¬Â

Other features include: * Up to 11 hours, 28 minutes of battery life1 with six cell battery and optional 6-cell battery slice * Daylight Viewable display that has up to 100 percent more luminance than the HP EliteBook 2730p. * Full-size keyboard, touchpad, point stick and battery-free pen give users input flexibility. * Combines performance with high touch accuracy to allow touch interface with small icons without drops or hangs. * Comprehensive services options with Dell ProSupport.2

Manuel

02/10/2009 at 2:14 am

11hours? Yeah right!! Having a look @ the new cpu I see that voltage of the SU9400 is 1.05-1.15V which is not a ULV compared to the real ULV U7600 with 0.75-0.925V. So the new one sucks even more Power. Well, the CPU is not a the big power waster. Thats the Screen! I meassured power consumption of the screen yesterday. Result: the screen takes approx 11Watt of the 24Watt total. Compared to my Toshiba R500 whos display only takes 3 Watt. And according to Brett McAnally, director, Dell Product Group, they didnt change the display on the new XT2. Did they?

@Rob please check the battery life very detailed. Please. Its the (only) 2 hours of my XT which make me hate it. The R500 easy lasts for 6-8hours at weigth of 2lbs…

Manuel

02/10/2009 at 2:22 am

Ok I was obviously wrong on that they didn’t change anything on the display. Having a look at the new pics you can see that it is much much thinner now. Thats the way to go! Please give us 6-8hours with 6 cell battery…

Osiris

rocke86

02/10/2009 at 3:45 am

“Daylight Viewable display that has up to 100 percent more luminance than the HP EliteBook 2730p”

Wow that has to be very bright! I had to turn the max brightness down on my 2730p when plugged in because it was hurting my eyes. I also disabled the brightness sensors because they put it in a area that my hand blocks.

I was afraid this was going to make me regret getting the hp but I consider them fairly similar. I wonder how the performance of hp’s 1.86ghz and ddr2 vs dell’s 1.4ghz and ddr3 will be. I do like the looks and multitouch of the dell.

ThreeTwo

02/10/2009 at 7:10 am

I own an XT, and looking at the XT2, I can’t figure out what is new & improved, other than it is (probably) faster. It looks like the same size, weight, and features. What am I missing that makes this a compelling upgrade? Or is this just a set of small, evolutionary improvements?

@threetwo: in my opinion, there is nothing in the xt2 worthy of upgrading from the xt for current owners. It has longer battery life due to montevina, redesigned wireless antennae, and different processor, and a little bright screen.

Frank

02/10/2009 at 7:34 am

@Manuel: It’s still a LCD they use, it’s just a LCD with LED backlight. The special thing is now, that they offer a display which uses very bright LED’s as a backlight source.

@battery life: That’s a joke if you consider that you need two batteries. My T2010 has a single 9 cell battery which has the same capacity and battery life the dell 6 cell + 9 cell batteries have together.

Are they serious with that base price? When the XT was the only multi-touch tablet in town, I could at least understand why it was so expensive. But $2400 is more than double the base price of the multi-touch HP Touchsmart tx2, and that tablet regularly gets discounted down even further. Yesterday’s deal brought it down to $750.

I understand the HP is a consumer-oriented PC, while the Dell is for business, but in what business would it make more sense to spend more on one Dell multi-touch tablet vs. two HP multi-touch tablets? I could be convinced the XT2 is a better PC, but twice the price better? I don’t see the justification.

Rob, I think the specs you have up there include an error – when you go to the order page, it offers Sprint or Verizon EV-DO, but no UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA. So this won’t work with AT&T mobile data, or when traveling overseas.

Manuel

02/10/2009 at 9:34 am

@Rob “It has longer battery life due to montevina”. Sorry but that is not true. Montevina wont make any sigificant difference. Since the old platform used “only” 14 Watt which is an okay value. The Problem was(maybe is) the screen.

@frank “The special thing is now, that they offer a display which uses very bright LEDÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s as a backlight source” What do you mean by that?

Frank

02/10/2009 at 10:30 am

@manuel Almost all notebooks/tablets use transmissive LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) as a monitor, which needs a background lighting. Currently most of the monitors use CCFLs (Cold cathode fluorescent lamps) for this, newer monitors use LEDs as light source instead. The Fujitsu T2010/T2020/T5010, HP2710/2730p/TX2, Toshiba M700/M750, Lenovo X200t, use LEDs instead of CCFLs. The Dell XT has/had two options, a bright LED backlit display or an even brighter CCFL backlit display, for outdoor usage. The Dell XT2 now offers a hopefully still bright LED backlit display and an even brighter LED backlit display, called daylight viewable. CCFLs are cheaper, simpler and more common. LEDs are brighter, consume less power, the display frame can kept slimmer, they last longer, produce more vibrant colors, but are more expensive. The funny thing is that Dell compares its daylight viewable LED backlit diplay with the HP2730p LED backlit display. It’s well known that the HP LED backlit display is bright, but the Fujitsu and Lenovo LED backlit displays even brighter. So Dell just says that their expensive display model is brighter than the HP, but not if it’s brighter than the Fujitsu and Lenovo displays, and this also means that the normal LED backlit display from Dell is as “dim” as the HP display. Summarized: Dell upgraded their outdoor viewable CCFL backlit display version of the XT to an outdoor viewable LED backlit display.

Maybe you’ve meant with “Its no longer an LCD display but a LED display” OLED? That’s the display type in which each pixels emits light, used in the latest OQO. But this technology is too new and too expensive up to now to build this in a 12″ large tablet.

Lars

MarceloR

02/10/2009 at 4:46 pm

The bits about the USB/eSATA interest me. However, I cannot see myself paying any kind of money for a tablet with 1) a low-res wide-screen format and 2) no digital video output on the chassis. The Thinkpad X200 failed me on the two counts and I did not buy. I guess my X61T, albeit with VGA-only output but a high-res screen, will have to last a long time as I see no viable alternative coming out any time soon.

Frank

02/11/2009 at 12:51 pm

@RDX: Poor batteries with low capacity. My 9 cell main battery in the T2010 has 94Wh Dell needs a 6 cell main battery with 42Wh together with a 9 cell 45Wh battery to reach 97Wh, that’s really poor. And the ATI graphics card also needed more power than the Intel X3100. So it was just a poor designed tablet, regarding battery life.